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Talk:VPBE/@comment-24951773-20150801095934/@comment-24702580-20150804161322
I mean, to be honest true AP bruisers in general aren't really all that common and those that do exist often have some issues with balance (Either too weak, too strong, or just wierd). AP champions rarely are able to find a middle ground between being an AP mage/assassin (Ekko, Fizz, Kassadin, Leblanc, Orianna, Ahri ect.) and an AP tank (Amumu, Cho'gath sometimes, Gragas, Malphite, Maokai; I'm not including full tanks that have AP ratios to keep the list short, Zac for example). The reason I think this is the case is because the main job of a bruiser is to take down squishy targets similar to what an assassin does but not as quick and easier to kite. AD bruisers are fairly good at this because they have another source of damage besides their abilities, their autoattacks. Let's look at Vi for example, she gets on top of a squishy with her Q and her ultimate, uses her E twice and follows up with her autoattacks to finish you off. This works not only because she does a good bit of damage with her abilities, but also because her damage output doesn't drop off like a rock after she has used all her cooldowns thanks to her W and autos scaling from whatever AD she decided to build. An AP bruiser on the other hand will most often deal next to no damage at all once they have used all their cooldowns, in order for them to be able to acomplish that fundamental job of killing their squishy target they either need to output a massive amount of damage from their abilities either with huge base damages or massive ratios(Which basically makes them just an assassin with numbers that are so overtuned they only need 2-3 damage items late game to kill you), or they need to have one or 2 abilities with low enough cooldowns that they can continue to output their damage even after their major abilities have been used (In which case they would be better off as a tank killing full AP because sustained magic damage is so effective at melting tanks, think Azir and Cass). If you take a look at most of the AP bruisers in the game they can fit into one of those two catgories. Diana fits into the first category mostly, when she goes in with her full combo it tends to take off a large portion of your health (Or just kill you outright if she is ahead) and then she can finish you off with her passive. The only reason she is even considered an AP bruiser rather than an assassin is because her base stats are so good that she only really needs one defensive item to get really tanky. Ryze is another example, he becomes incredibly hard to kill with the spellvamp from his ultimate and his passive shields while outputting insane amounts of damage. As he is now he is a very effective AP bruiser and full AP mage but there have been a lot of issues keeping him balanced lately, basically meaning he isn't a good example of what an AP bruiser should be. Evelynn is in a very similar state to Ryze in that she can make a very good AP bruiser but also succeeds as a nearly full AP assassin like Diana. She can go in with her ultimate and her E with a very potent nuke followed up by however many Qs it takes to finish you off all the while being nearly impossible to escape thanks to her W. Combined with the shield from her ultimate she only really needs one or 2 defense items to survive and still outputs a lot of damage. Elise is one of the better examples that sees a good bit of play at the moment (Mostly because people wanted to see if her buffs made her good or not) She has a good bit of damage coming from her Qs in both forms and her human form W and her auto attacks and Qs in spider form are good at finishing you off after you have been chunked down by her human form. She also can do well with just a few defensive items because of the sustain from her spider form autos and her spiderling's annoying tendancy to block skillshots. Swain is also a decent AP bruiser mostly due to the fact that he is completely incapable of bursting a target in a few seconds. Because nearly all of his damage comes in the form of DoTs he needs to get a bit of survivability (Usually in the form of a spirit visage, RoA, and Zhonyas with maybe an abyssal) to augment the insane healing he gets from his ultimate. His biggest issue is his complete lack of mobility but this makes him overall a very good comparison to Mordekaiser. One of the two most successful examples of AP bruisers is Galio, he does have his own share of problems when it comes to lane matchups and his overreliance on flash to set up a good ultimate, but he is able to get a very good mix of damage and tankyness thanks to his passive and his W. He is certainly not in the best spot at the moment because he gets destroyed by any AD lane opponents but he is and always has been able to shut down almost any AP champion in lane very consistantly. The other of the two most successful AP bruisers is Singed. He has effectively zero burst damage and relies entirely on his poison to deal his damage. His passive in combination with his ultimate and his tendency to focus on item builds that make him almost impossible to catch up to make him very survivable and overall he is single handedly capable of making the entire enemy team wish they were off playing minecraft. His biggest issue is that he is completely unlike any other champion in the game in terms of how he interacts with both teams. He is the only champion in the game that can sit in their lane for the entirety of a match and still hard carry without a single kill. Back to the topic, the best route that Riot could push morde down is most likely something similar to Swain, where he gains a lot of survivability and damage at the cost of mobility. The biggest problem with doing something like that to morde is that he is a manaless champion and would thus be exceptionally difficult to keep in check. The only things that keep Swain from becoming the most horribly overpowered champion in the game is his limited mana pool and his low mobility. Trying to balance a champion of that nature with just mobility as the balancing factor has the potential to be very problematic.